


What She Saw

by Findswoman



Series: The Gand Series [5]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types
Genre: Childhood, Flash Forward, Gand - Freeform, Gand Intuition, Gardening, Gen, Self-Doubt, Vignette, Visions
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-11
Updated: 2020-06-11
Packaged: 2021-03-04 04:47:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,647
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24667864
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Findswoman/pseuds/Findswoman
Summary: A Gand child discovers she has a gift for seeing lost objects… and reflects on that talent later in her life, as well
Relationships: Original Character(s) & Original Character(s)
Series: The Gand Series [5]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1783291
Kudos: 1





	What She Saw

**Author's Note:**

> This story began as an "outtake" from [The Book of Gand](http://boards.theforce.net/threads/the-book-of-gand-mostly-ocs.50019763/) that I repurposed in May 2018 for the [OC Revolution Spring/Summer 2018 challenge](https://boards.theforce.net/threads/the-oc-revolution-two-spring-2020-challenges-posted-voting-time-6-9-p-53-1310.50004117/page-42#post-55128042) at JCF. Starts somewhere around 15 BBY; ends later than that but still before the OT era. All the plant names are fanon.

In N’xid, the smallest and poorest of the pocket colonies that loom from the mists of Gand, there was a cottage. It was small, but behind it was a large, crowded, fenced-in garden with a small glasshouse, and its variety of flowers, leaves, shapes, and colors contrasted starkly with the dinginess of the surrounding neighborhood.  
  
This cottage, and this garden, belonged to two honest, hardworking Gand Seculars: a married couple, Viuraanvi and Lekli, each with only a single name. They were gardeners, growing flowers, fruits, herbs, and vegetables of every description for every purpose, and they had one daughter, still small, still nameless. Almost every day the family could be seen hard at work in their garden, hoeing, digging, feeding, planting, and harvesting. When they were not there they were at the local market selling their wares: the mother and father at their modest booth at the corner of the marketplace, the daughter walking about with her basket of fruit, selling fresh blue _togu,_ plump red _zyll_ -berries, or _trogg_ citrus, as the season provided.  
  
It was a bright but chill morning during the transitional season between the times of rain and dryness, and the gardener family was out working as usual. The mother, clad in a heavy, patched brown work tunic, was making a careful circuit of the garden, pinching off any dead leaves and flowers into a basket that she periodically took over to empty into a compost pile in one corner of the garden. Her husband, a somewhat scruffy male with a craggy, dark brown exoskeleton and heavy, soil-splotched boots, was struggling to untangle burrs and weed-vines from a lush, red-leafed climbing shrub that dominated an entire side of the surrounding. Their daughter went from bed to bed pulling up weeds, and there could not be a greater contrast between parents and child: where the former were sturdy and heavy in build, the latter was slight of build, small even for her age, and her chitin was the light golden-tan typical for a female in the nymph stage of development. As she looked about at the abundant flowers and foliage, the colors of the sky were reflected in her golden compound eyes.  
  
Her father crunched his mandibles as he wrenched a particularly difficult cluster of vines from the red-leafed shrub. “Fog and blood! Viurraanvi doesn’t understand this! How did all this befoggèd bindscrub get here?! Just look!” He brandished a fistful of the torn vegetation. “The stems have gone all woody! Bindscrub isn’t supposed to be _woody,_ for fog’s sake!”  
  
“It’s been known to do that when it gets enough water,” said his wife matter-of-factly as she pulled a handful of gray, withered blooms from one of the _lulan_ trees. “And this was a rainier season than usual. You’ll save yourself some work if you get the pruning shears from the shed.”  
 _  
The little girl perked up as she heard the word “shears,” though neither of her parents noticed._  
  
“Gand still can’t find ’em,” Viurraanvi grunted, yanking off another clump of bindscrub. “Gand probably dropped ’em in a hole by accident back when you and he were replanting the _vryth_ bushes. Viurraanvi would buy a new pair if they weren’t so befoggèd expensive.”  
  
“There are the hedge clippers—”  
  
Viurraanvi’s mouthparts clattered querulously to cut her off. “No way in the name of the Holy Madman’s boot buckles is Viurraanvi is going to use that huge long blade just for bindscrub. It’ll just slice up the _ighll_ too. Ah, nothing to be done about it. They’re gone, and that’s that.”  
  
Clacking his mandibles in resignation, he returned to his work. All of them worked on in silence, for several more minutes, in the morning chill.  
 _  
Including the gardeners’ daughter. Shears… she had seen something like that just recently, hadn’t she? Not just seen but_ seen, _that time when she went into the glasshouse just to sit and be alone and think (which Mother and Father hate because it means that Gand is not doing her work). Shall she tell them? She shall. She shall tell Father first; he doesn’t usually get quite as annoyed about things like this._  
  
So, after dutifully pitching her handful of weeds on the compost pile, she walked over to him and tapped him shyly on the arm with one delicate claw.  
  
“Father?”  
  
Viurraanvi answered with a desultory “Yes, what is it, little one?”  
  
“Well—” _Now think before you say this, little Gand. Are you absolutely sure of yourself?_  
  
“Well what, little one?”  
  
“Gand, don’t bother your father while he’s working,” her mother called over from the garden’s opposite corner, where she was sprinkling fertilizer on a bed of vegetable plants.  
  
“It’s no trouble,” rejoined Viurraanvi. “Now, what is it, little Gand? Out with it, now.”  
  
“Did you say something about some shears?”  
  
“Yes, Father did. Why?”  
  
“Well, er—” _Pause for a moment. Think back to what you_ saw _that time._ “Gand thinks she might—er—know”— _careful using that word, little one!_ —“know where they are.”  
  
Her father stopped for a moment and looked up, and his mandibles spread open cheerfully. “Oh, you must be thinking of the hedge clippers, too! Nice thought, little Gand, but didn’t you just hear Father say that those wouldn’t work?”  
  
“No, Father. These are different.” _You’re sure about that, are you? Don’t say anything unless you’re—_ “The blades are shorter. And they’ve got long wooden handles with your name carved on them. And they’re—” _Pause again. Be sure of what you_ saw, _of what you say._ “They’re in—” _You saw a big pile of soil and humus and dead plants, right? But there’s soil and dead growth all over the garden, so what does that really mean?—_  
  
“They’re at the bottom of the compost pile.”  
  
The girl’s response startled Viurraanvi. “And what were _you_ doing digging in the—”  
  
He stopped short as he glanced at the compost pile in the far back corner of the garden. It was in good, compact order, and it certainly didn’t look as though anyone had been digging in it recently. In any case, his daughter had never been one for playing in the dirt beyond her usual gardening duties…  
  
His wife cut in again. “Viurrraanvi, you shouldn’t let her distract you. You have work to do.”  
  
But Viurraanvi had already fetched the spade from where it leaned against the side of the shed. “Couldn’t hurt to check, at least.” He paused beside his daughter, raising his voice. “And if she’s telling tales? Well, then, she gets no _quaag_ after supper. Simple.”  
  
So saying, the sturdy Gand gardener hefted the spade and began to dig through the compost pile. He handled the large implement deftly, with all the facility of one who had worked the ground all his life. His daughter looked on anxiously as the gray-brown detritus flew and squelched. _What if you’re wrong, little Gand? What if what you_ saw _was just your silly imagination? Are you just making things up to distract Mother and Father from their work? If so, you deserve to lose your_ quaag _…_  
  
CLANK! The girl started, and even at the opposite corner of the garden her mother turned and looked as well. The spade had struck metal. “FOG AND BLOOD!” Viurraanvi exclaimed, almost dropping the spade.  
  
“Gand! Watch your language!”  
  
“Many apologies, Lekli dear…” muttered the gardener as he dropped to his knees and began to rummage through the compost. After a few moments he extracted what seemed to be a large, wood-handled lopping shears, caked with dirt, which he rubbed clean on the side of his coveralls. Carved crudely but recognizably into one handle was the name VIURRAANVI.  
  
“Gentle Visionary Mists above… it’s really… they’re really…” He looked from the shears over to his wife, then over to his daughter, whose golden eyes were turned downward as she fidgeted nervously with her scarf. _Looks like you were right this time, little one._ This _time…_  
  
Finally Lekli broke the silence with a clack of her mandibles. “Well, Viurraanvi, no more procrastination. Time to get to work on all that bindscrub.”  
  
“Yes, of course,” replied Viurraanvi absently. He started slowly back toward the _ighll_ vine but stopped suddenly and gave his daughter a friendly tap on the head with one claw. “Not bad, little Gand. Have as much _quaag_ as you want after supper.”  
  
“Thank you, Father,” came the meek response as little Gand returned to her weeding.  
  
But she knew what she wanted even more than _quaag._ After supper, as the evening mists fell and the shadows lengthened, while her parents sat on the porch drinking their _djelatha,_ she would go once again into the glasshouse and sit and think—and perhaps, once again, _see._ _There’s the button mouthpart that fell off your doll that time… and one of the spoons from the_ djelatha _set… and the scarf that Mother lost…_

* * *

 _...and your Sacred Visionary Mists scattered by the invaders’ machines… and your sacred shrines trampled and dirtied by their plasteel feet… and_ him, _both Findsmaster and beloved…_  
  
Yes, Telfien Viurraanvi had tried to _think_ and _see_ those things too as she sat before the large plate-window of this small, cramped room. It was really not so different from that glasshouse in her parents’ little garden long ago, where the eventide mists had once shown her lost garden tools, buttons, scarves, spoons. And should it not be easier now that she was a fully fledged Gand Findswoman, at the height of her powers? _Oh, but you should know by now what happens when you get too sure of yourself, little Gand…_  
  
She knew. For the plate-window was the viewport of a starship—and the blue light outside the window was not the calm silver-blue glow of Gand’s evening Mists. It was the blinding, blue-white vortex of hyperspace, and with each passing second it whirled her farther and farther away from her home.


End file.
